RATP

Saudi Public Transport Co. ( SAPTCO ) said on Thursday that its alliance with France’s RATP Dev has jointly secured a SR7.85 billion ($2.09 billion) contract to operate and maintain buses in the Kingdom’s capital Riyadh. The 10-year deal will be linked to the city’s railway project (known as the King Abdulaziz Project for Public Transport) and will handle the procurement, operation and maintenance of the buses, SAPTCO said in a statement. SAPTCO had previously said that it has teamed up with France’s Regie Autonome des Transports Parisiens (RATP) to bid for public transport projects in Saudi Arabia. The Saudi government had awarded $22.5 billion in contracts to three foreign-led consortia in July last year for the design and construction of the first metro rail system in Riyadh.